THE PENINSULA TRUCK

"The name Peninsula Truck", was derived from the location of the Welland plant, on the Niagara Peninsula, in Ontario, Canada.

There was a short period in the fall of 1963, when a friend, (acquaintance) wanted me to operate his new Peninsula Tractor. I guess by the name, you have never heard of this brand of truck before.

A couple years earlier, SWITSON INDUSTRIES of Welland, Ontario, Canada, were big in the manufacture of vacuum cleaners, and actually, under a new name, they still exist today. Things were really going ahead great guns. Someone in authority, decided that they should diversify. A few suggestions came up. One in particular was to get into designing and manufacturing of a snowmobile. The craze was just starting to take off at the time. Another suggestion was to design and build a diesel powered, class 8 truck, then try a giant front end loader.

This particular one that I drove, was a real square box cab. The doors were totally square with no curves in the design, anywhere. Without a no draught window for air circulation. The windows would steam up at the slightest sign of dampness. The running gear was the customers choice. In my case it was a 220 Cummins, and a 10 speed Roadranger. The Roadranger was a special model that I had never seen before, or since. The doghouse, (engine cover, inside the cab) was a full box shape, with no indentation to the floor to accommodate a swinging gearshift area. Instead, there was a gearshift mounted on top of the dog house right beside the driver. The stick was about 6" in height, and had small 2 inch slots on the base for the gear selector to be guided into. The slotted base plate was about 6 inches across. Like a little toy. The high range pin was a disc under the control knob. Up or down, for high or low range. Under the dog house was a mass of air lines going to the transmission. All the shifting was air controlled. Once you got used to it, it was a lazy man's tranny. All gear shifting was done with short wrist movements, less than a couple inches of range.

NOTE, --- I never did get to try it out at 40 degrees F, below zero to see how easy it would freeze up.

The thing was geared for the moon, there were very few trucks that could keep up to it.

The weak point of it was the spring shackles on the steering. I myself, and a few others figured them to be too light. Any sudden and heavy shock may drop the front end right out from under you. But being young, brave and foolish, (Or should that be, stupid?) safety came first, after speed.

Everything about the truck was experimental, and fabricated by a vacuum cleaner manufacturer.

I was in the KINGSWAY TRANSPORT, garage in Toronto one day, for service. If I remember correctly, they did the warranty work for PENINSULA. There was a giant version, of this truck in for repairs, or service. It was a full tandem and was totally heavy duty. Double channeled frame, long wheelbase, and above all, an engine that was so big, it stuck out from under the rear of the bunk, by about, at least 2 or 3 feet. Being built totally from steel, it was one heavy tractor, just deadheading.

The wheels were 11:00 X 22. That, at that time was humongous. The transmission was a 5 X 4 Spicer two stick, and the engine was, a giant straight 8 cylinder, ROLES ROYCE diesel engine. (Man, talk about power,--- whew!) The driver was an owner/operator on with Kingsway Transport, and hauled oversize steel beam loads to the new mines up north, at RED LAKE, ONTARIO, CANADA. I guess that with all that power and speed, he would just fly over those bush roads and destroy the trailer suspensions. But in those days, the economic boom was in full swing, and most contracts were in a hurry, and at cost plus. Something you do not see today. (The hurry part still being there, but not the cost plus part.) I have no idea what the Horse Power was, but it was the biggest I had ever seen in a truck, at that time.

Now back to the unit I was driving, it was contracted out to PRIME PACKERS of Toronto. I had loads of beef parts for delivery in Montreal. At least 30 to 40 drops, of hanging beef and blocks of ribs.

After that episode was finished, we gypsy'd loads from the docks in Brooklyn, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey, USA, back into Canada. There was quite an explosive incident on the docks, on New Years eve, getting loaded out. That is another story all on it's own, and will come up at a later date.

The front end loader never got past the prototype stage. A final new model came out using the FORD C- MODEL CAB, such as this photo, from the David Faust Collection at Hank's Truck Pictures Web Site. The grill piece was changed, as was the transmission stick mounting.

It had the same air controlled 10 speed Roadranger, short stick. I had seen in the first production model, but never knowingly seen one on the road. They gave out a lot of easy credit in the beginning, to get the trucks into the publics eye, but as usual, a few of the bad credit boys, screwed it up for everyone, and production ceased, forever. Back to the vacuum cleaners.